Just another DESPERATE F1 nerd

Right. Perhaps Lando had started flirting with him to draw him out of his shell a little. He wanted to make the lad feel more at ease, to show him that it was okay to spend time in his company; he’d started taking on a slightly lighter role in their joint media appearances, wanting to make him laugh, wanting to put him at ease.

And little by little, it had started to work. The quiet Australian had stopped trying to control his accent, had started to joke around in his company, had shyly asked him to play FIFA with him after training sessions, to speak up more at meetings and to demand things.

Lando, however, had still been rather neutral towards him at that stage. He didn’t really need any new besties; he already had his own circle of people with whom he had plenty of fun. What’s more, he felt that he and Oscar didn’t have all that much in common, apart from the fact that they both liked rarer cars and especially Porsches, rally cars, Audis and, on a good day, McLaren sports cars too.

But then Oscar had started to show his pace. These were isolated occurrences, and he wasn’t too worried about them. Broadly speaking, however, he was the faster of the two, and he demolished Oscar in the qualifying comparison. Then came 2024, and he saw the style with which Oscar was overtaking other drivers. Accomplished drivers and those who deserved respect – such were the unwritten rules of the F1 paddock. But Oscar was lapping drivers such as Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, and eventually he began to appear in Max Verstappen’s mirrors to such an extent that Lando had started watching his overtakes on footage. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what on earth was wrong with the Australians, given that they were all so brilliant at overtaking on the outside.

Year 2025.

Lando had been at his wits’ end.

The challenge had seemed so impossible that it felt as if a vertical wall had been erected against him. Even when he won, Oscar would pull into the spot next to him. He had clung to his sleeve like a burr that he couldn’t shake off – and certainly not from his mind.

Lando’s stomach had started to churn whenever he thought of Oscar. At first, he thought it was down to anxiety, that psychological warfare thing that was going on, and all the tactical manoeuvring between the two teams. He knew that, in reality, every team split into two factions that rallied around their own driver, come what may. And, to him, it was in a way natural that, having been part of McLaren since he was 17, a certain amount of attention was focused more on him; he simply knew more people at the team. He knew whose families had welcomed new babies. He remembered the names of their family members. He had earned the extra attention.

Still, he felt nervous and tense, and the air was heavy whenever Oscar was nearby. Nevertheless, he carried on with his clowning around, pretending that nothing had changed, playing pranks, pinching his bottom, even though there was a certain detachment in everything he did at that moment, a certain robotic quality. He wished there hadn’t been that kind of energy between them all the time, that feeling that a storm could break out at any moment and they’d be left adrift.

At the same time, he admitted, it had aroused him. Their hard racing.

Whilst masturbating, Lando thought he was merely releasing the tension and stress of the season. As he came, he’d been overcome by a sense of failure, which he made up for by racing as close to Oscar as possible on the track, retreating to his room after the race and, regardless of victory or defeat, satisfying himself.

Sometimes he’d thought of Oscar’s face. That smug expression on the highest step of the podium. God, how he’d have loved to slap him. To wipe that arrogant fucking smile off his lips. At the same time, he thought that Oscar’s growing self-confidence suited him; he smiled more, shook hands with greater confidence, and even gave Lando a wink that made the latter lose his footing.

Suddenly, he wanted to touch Oscar perhaps a little more. To brush away the hairs left on his racing suit, to tidy his long hair, to lend him clothes and, above all, to celebrate their shared success, to drink warm prize-winning champagne, to ask him questions he’d never truly dared to ask.

To ask, in the heat of victory, with the bland music Oscar had chosen playing in the background and turned up far too loud, had he ever been in a relationship

had it ever happened that he’d been interested in men

and would he have fancied a bit of a snog

just for the sake of it, with no strings attached.

Or they wouldn’t even have necessarily had to kiss.

If Oscar had thought that would be too intimate, it would have been enough for him to slip his hand under Oscar’s fire-safe underwear and

And there he was, all of a sudden at last.

And Lando’s most secret fantasies had come true.

And that was why he’d arranged a day for them to spend together: so that, for as long as they had time together, he’d spend it on Oscar, because you never knew – he was a realist – what the two of them might still have to endure.

And would their public roles ultimately tear them apart?

Before they’d even had a chance to head off for breakfast at a nearby bakery-café, his phone had been flooded with messages from people who knew he was free. He urged Oscar to pick out the comfiest clothes he could find in his wardrobe, including sportswear, and made sure his phone would be in airplane mode that day. He stashed his phone in the side pocket of his sports bag and gave Oscar a playful slap on the bum, because he simply looked so soft and desirable in his grey-and-white baggy shorts. Oscar put on his own black T-shirt, which he approved of – and even lent him a pair of shorts for the game of padel, to which he’d invited Alex and George that morning. A fresh start, he’d reasoned for all of them.

Then Oscar had been suspiciously quiet for a moment in his bedroom, and when he’d popped in to take a peek, he’d found Oscar wearing a neon-yellow bucket hat, the very one featuring the ring-shaped design Lando himself had created, smiling like a sunflower, and his heart had melted.

Oscar had still been smiling when Lando had suddenly fetched his Leica digital camera and captured him in his bedroom, two front teeth gleaming. Lando still remembered the days when Oscar had hidden his teeth in his presence, placing his oh-so-pretty hands in front of his face when he laughed. But now Oscar looked him straight in the eye, a gaze he knew how to return. He laughed heartily at his lame jokes, because that was the only acceptable way to show affection in the hyper-masculine world of Formula One.

Who knows, perhaps the photo he’d taken would one day end up in his collection of framed pictures.

Lando found himself feeling a little wistful at how eagerly Oscar ran over to greet and hug Alex and George outside the padel court.

Back in 2019, the rookies had been the best of friends, but now they’d drifted a little apart. And Oscar had made them his best friends, which still felt like a fair trade. Even so, Lando couldn’t help but notice how much Alex was chatting to Oscar on his own, and made it clear right from the start of the match that he and Oscar were a team. He marked out a mental boundary on the pitch with his spadel racket, one that was not to be crossed.

And they’d had fun. George was a professional – he didn’t complain about his situation in the world championship, even though he had every reason to. Lando knew that both Oscar and George had principled difficulties, as George put it, with the fact that their driving was so heavily controlled by external, technical systems.

He was glad he’d won the championship the previous year.

He couldn’t say that to anyone in that company.

He put his cap on backwards, and then the game began.

Oscar wasted far too much energy striding right across the pitch. George had a certain reach, and Alex wanted to triumph at least in something. They lost – almost by a landslide – and high-fived each other; Lando could almost smell Oscar’s competitive spirit hanging in the air. It was almost endearing that he wanted to win at everything and all the time; he might even get angry over their simple PR challenges.

It all washed away, however, under a hot shower in the bathrooms.

Lando deliberately went to the other end, though he couldn’t help but glance over.

They world was full of beautiful, pretty lads, but when Oscar turned his head towards him subtly over his shoulder, his hair dripping with water, he was the most beautiful of them all. His eyebrows arched questioningly, his eyes full of confidence.

The softest boy in the world.

He felt that flutter in his stomach again.